Tories’ budget raid on free schools to give heads £1.3bn

Climbdown after 4-day week threat by teachers

‘Ease pressure on schools’

MINISTERS have raided the free schools budget to help find an extra £1.3billion over the next two years for headteachers to plug shortfalls in their budgets.

Education secretary Justine Greening announced the extra money yesterday following pressure from her own MPs as well as Labour and the teaching unions.

It comes after schools sent out begging letters to parents and threatened to introduce a fourday week in response to frontline budget pressures.

However, yesterday critics said the funding was simply being ‘recycled’ since it will be raised through ‘ efficiencies’ in the Department for Education and is not new money.

Some – £280million – will be raised by asking councils to set up 30 of the 140 new free schools planned, which is cheaper than doing so centrally.

However, the schools will still be academies and the local authorities will not be allowed to run them. A total of £315million will also be diverted from a pot reserved for after- school club sporting facilities.

Head teachers have complained that rising national insurance and staffing costs meant budgets had been cut in real terms.

Miss Greening said she had recognised concerns raised during the General Election campaign about the ‘overall level of funding in schools’.

She said the £ 1.3billion announced yesterday – £416million in 2018-19 and £884million in 2019-20 – will ensure funding per pupil is ‘maintained in real terms’.

Combined with an earlier pledge, it means there will be an extra £ 2.6billion for schools between this year and 2019/20, raising the overall budget to £43.5billion.

Miss Greening said this investment would increase the basic amount of funding for every pupil, up 3 per cent a year per pupil at underfunded schools and 0.5 per cent per pupil for every school.

She also confirmed the Government will implement a new national funding formula, which will even out inconsistencies in how schools are funded.

She told MPs: ‘The additional funding I’m setting out today, together with the introduction of a national funding formula, will provide schools with the investment they need to offer a world-class education to every single child.’

The Department for Education plans to find the rest of pledged cash through other efficiencies. Schools will also be expected to sign up to so-called national deals on things such as energy to save money.

The Liberal Democrats said ‘recycling cash from the education budget’ was ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. In the Commons, Conservative MP Anna Soubry said: ‘Could I give the Secretary of State ten out of ten for progress and a huge gold star for listening to the concerns of members on this side and no doubt the other side as well.’

Sam Freedman, of education charity Teach First, described the announcement as ‘ really positive news’. He said: ‘This will undoubtedly help ease the current pressure on schools.’

It is hoped the measure will avert a backbench rebellion, because schools in some Conservative-held seats were due to lose out under earlier proposals.

It also comes following an aggressive campaign by Labour in partnership with the teaching unions which made school funding a central issue in the General Election.

Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: ‘We are heartened that the Government is reallocating some money from the free schools budget to maintained schools who were faced with unsustainable cuts.

‘This is not a long-term solution to the funding crisis.’